Stories

I'm sitting at a cafe. I'm supposed to be editing my book, or writing the last story. Instead, I'm listening to the conversation at the next table.

It's two girls. (Young women? I'm 28 and still refer to myself as a girl, so I'm the wrong person to ask about the terminology.) They're discussing books they're writing. And I'm listening, and some of it sounds really good, and some of it sounds kind of cliche, but all of it is making me really happy because I've totally been there.

They're talking about characters like old friends, about plot turns (with the occasional interjection: "Oh wait! I can't tell you about that part yet. It'll spoil the ending."), about world-building, about making maps and pronunciation guides, about restructuring so that this part of the story actually comes at the end instead of the middle...

I love it.

Maybe it's that I'm young still. I was reading an introduction by Chuck Palahnuik, and he was talking about how when you're a young reader you want books that are mirrors. You want to see yourself, or something you can relate to. Sitting here listening to these girls talking about their books, it's like a mirror, or maybe a window to the past. It's me and Liz sitting around talking about the Red Quarter or the Doorkeeper. Or me and Amber swapping emails about Proverbs stories and Wishbook.

It's fun.

That's been the problem with the Halloween Stories, and why I'm kind of happy to be bringing that whole chapter to an end. As things have gone on, it's no longer fun. It's not the challenge or the new shiny thing it was at the beginning.

So I'm going to bring it to a close, focus on Doors and Half Miracle and Wishbook and whatever other stories creep in meanwhile.

It doesn't have to be a career or cause for stress. It can just be sitting around telling stories. That's really the way it should be.